Gormanston, County Meath

Bremore Port

Drogheda port company are considering a move to Bremore near Gormanston, to create a state-of-the-art port which will also handle passengers.

Archaeology

• The group of passage graves on either side of the mouth of river Delvin known as the Bremore/Gormanston group is believed by most experts on the passage grave culture in Ireland to mark the arrival of that culture from the Iberian peninsula and to be the precursor of later developments such as the Newgrange cluster. Legend also associates the site with the first landings of both St Patrick and Oliver Cromwell. The Gormanston area is outstandingly rich in neolithic artefacts and indeed those of all later periods.
• During construction of a gas pipeline between the UK and Ireland a 7 metre long prehistoric dugout was found just offshore at Gormanston strand Unlike other ancient Irish boats the Gormanston boat seems to have been of outrigger construction.

Historic features

• St Brigid's well in Tobersool is an ancient holy well associated with a cure for diseases of the eye.
• Several ancient cob cottages still exist in the village under more modern surfaces.
• Gormanston Bridge dates to the 13th century and is believed to be one of the oldest structures on the Dublin - Dunleer turnpike ^[3]
• The Cock pub at Gormanston cross has good claim to be the oldest public house in Ireland
• In 1870, the first authentic game of polo in Ireland was played on Gormanstown Strand involving the 9th Lancers, who were at the time quartered in the country.^[4]

Gormanston Castle and the Prestons

Gormanston Castle was, from the 14th century to the 1950s, the seat of the Preston family, who managed to hold on to their estate lands through the centuries despite being staunch Catholics. The head of the family is known as Viscount Gormanston, premier Viscount of Ireland. The current holder of the title is Jenico Preston, 17th Viscount Gormanston who resides in London. Elizabeth Gorman, painter, lived here.

The family sold the castle in the 1950s, when it was acquired by the Franciscan Order of Friars who then established a boarding school for boys in the grounds, known as Gormanston College.^[5] Since 2015 the school has been managed by Meath VEC under Franciscan trusteeship and is now largely a day school although there are still 70 boarders. The sports facilities and vacation accommodation for groups is separately managed by a new company Gormanston Park, who will reopen a refurbished swimming pool available to the general community in September 2016

According to the New Ireland Review, April 1908 legend holds that when the head of the family is in his final hours, the foxes of County Meath, except for nursing vixens, emerge from their earths and make their way to the door of Gormanston Castle to keep vigil until he has died, in thanksgiving for the deliverance and protection from maurauding predators of a vixen and her young by a previous Lord Gormanston.